“You know he doesn’t mean that, right? He was just upset.”
“I hate Dad sometimes.” Hurt glimmered in Georgie’s eyes. “He’s always angry and mean, and…I think you should be able to take a college class if you want.”
Audrey let out a long sigh and released her sister, scrubbing a hand over her face. “I don’t want to get into that now. Let’s focus on Oliver, okay?”
“I looked out the window after he left, and…” Georgie dropped her eyes to the ground as though she really didn’t want to say what was coming next.
“Tell me.”
“I think he stole Mrs. March’s car.”
“What?” Audrey let out a groan. “Why didn’t you lead with that, G?”
“I don’t want to get him in trouble, and…” She blinked tearfully. “I saw him sitting in the front seat, and there were wires.”
“He hot-wired her car? How does he even know how to do that?” Audrey felt herself spiraling, panic seizing hold of her lungs and airways. But she couldn’t fall in a heap now. She had to find Oliver and bring him back with the car before it got out of hand. An arrest on his record could ruin everything. “You know what—I don’t care. Take twenty dollars out of the envelope under my mattress and order pizza for you and your sister. Make sure she does her homework. I’ll find Oliver.”
Audrey got back into her car and pulled out of the driveway, having no idea where the hell she was going to find her brother. But Mrs. March would have to come outside her house eventually. The fact that nobody had called the police was a lucky break…unless they had? What if Oliver was already down at the local station?
A sick feeling swished in her stomach. “Think, dammit.”
One thing in her favor was that Mrs. March’s car was the approximate color of Big Bird. They always joked about it: Big Red and Big Yellow. It stood out. Audrey drove past a few of Oliver’s friends’ houses, but there was no sign of the car. She circled Kissing Creek, going past the high school and the rec center and the library and the main strip. Nothing.
She called her aunt, but he wasn’t with her, either. Would he have left town? Audrey wanted to scream at the top of her lungs until her voice box gave out. When she saw her father again, she was going to rain fire and brimstone down on him. She could take the brunt of her father’s assholery…but the others were sensitive. Oliver possibly the most sensitive. He’d been increasingly withdrawn lately, curling in on himself like an armadillo.
“You should have done more about this,” she scolded herself as she drove, her heart thumping at twice its normal speed. “You should have kept a closer eye on him, and instead you’re too busy screwing around with Ronan and classes and shit that doesn’t matter. What Oliver needs is a mother figure.”
Then it hit her like a bolt of lightning. She knew exactly where he was…the one place Audrey avoided at all costs.
When she pulled Big Red into the parking lot of the Kissing Creek cemetery, Audrey felt a wave of something black and oppressive slide over her. There was only one other car in the parking lot—an old, bright-yellow sedan.
Audrey sat for a moment, the past playing out as clear as if it were laid out in front of her. She could feel the chubby grip of Georgie and Oliver’s hands, one on either side of her, and hear baby Deanna wail as though she somehow knew what had been lost. She remembered the scratchy feel of the black polyester dress her aunt had made her wear, even though Audrey hated black. But everyone wore black. It was like the world had been drained of color that day. And every day since.
Drawing in a long breath, Audrey filled her lungs until her chest started to ache. There was no getting around this. She had to put her own feelings aside and help her brother.
Even though she hadn’t been back to the cemetery since the day of the funeral, Audrey knew the way without hesitation. Left at the little fountain, right at the rosebushes. She saw a lanky figure sitting cross-legged on the ground and heard the sound of her brother’s deep voice on the breeze. He was chatting away, almost as if a fight hadn’t happened. He seemed…happy.
Audrey approached quietly, her footsteps silenced by the spongy grass, and